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Saturday, July 7, 2012

Serious questions on the ‘legality’ of the raid – X news site etc

The raid on
Friday June 29th at the offices of both Sri Lanka Mirror and Lanka X
news was not legal. The Police
stated that those people were taken into custody under Section 118 of the Penal
Code. But, since this Section on the Law of Criminal Defamation has been
repealed under Act No. 12 of 2002, the Magistrate ordered to release them all
on Police bail.

This was stated in Parliament by Ranil Wickremasinghe a master
of the law, and he is usually exact in what he says, but does not get the
needed press coverage with headlines, for his careful study of what is legal
and what is not. Whilst the Police were violating the law, they also violated
the police code of discipline. The Charter resolved at the 107th Convention of
the World Inspectors’ General of Police held in 1997 states that the first duty
of a Police Officer is to execute the law. Acting outside the law is also a
contravention of that Charter.

Reading the
proceedings in Parliament, Nimal Siripala de Silva in reply gave a lame excuse
of them breaking another law of slander or some such, but the above law was
used in the execution of the order, and as the law is not in force it is
clearly an unlawful act, for which the Police have not been prosecuted.

It is obvious
that there is no real check to see if what the police does is legal as they
seem to be blindly taking orders, not knowing if they are actually legal. What
kind of country is this for the police to act in this way? A banana republic
perhaps.

Is there a
police commission that looks into the illegal activities of the police? I hope
so, and I hope they will be brought to book, so that next time round they will
be more careful before they break the law of the land with impunity.

I trust the
reader can judge for him or herself that most of what this govt. is engaged in
is either illegal or against the spirit of the law or both. It is important
that these acts are brought before the public’s attention. It is important the
public agitate for accountability instead of their current passive acceptance
of gross violation of the law by both the Govt. elected representatives and all
the govt. servants including the forces who habitually break the law of the
land, as if it does not apply to them.